Inverters for high power Distributed Energy (DE) systems currently use technology that is basically borrowed from the industrial motor drive, motive power and Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) industries. This adapted technology falls short of meeting critical requirements for commercially viable distributed energy systems.
Prior art DE inverters utilize power magnetic components that are physically large and heavy to allow the inverter to work at high conversion efficiencies. Basically, the larger the magnetic components, the lower the semiconductor switching frequency, the lower the semiconductor switching losses, the higher the conversion efficiency. The finished size, weight and cost of the inverter are largely driven by the magnetic filter components. The inverter conversion efficiency, however, is not a performance parameter that can be traded off for smaller magnetic components because the cost of the “green” energy, from a photovoltaic array, fuel cell or wind turbine is of such high value. For a given system output, any losses in the DE inverter must be made up in additional generating capacity in the DE source.
In all power conversion equipment, using high frequency switching topologies, the higher the switching frequency, the smaller the magnetic components will be. The weight and size of magnetic components typically account for over 50% of the system weight and over 30% of the system size. These magnetic components are usually made from two materials, copper and iron. The semiconductor power switch module, another key power component, can become highly integrated and all of the system control can be put on one thumbnail sized microcontroller but the magnetics will still determine the equipment size and weight.
In DE inverters with power ratings greater than 10 kW, typically the switching and diode recovery losses of the IGBT power switches limit the maximum switching frequency, for a given conversion efficiency. These losses, at a given operating point, are the same for every switch cycle so that a machine running at 16 kHz will have twice the losses of the same machine running at 8 kHz. The trade-off is that for an equivalent amount of filtering, the 8 kHz operation would require twice the filter inductance.